The sense of freedom associated with the American dream is often kept behind a door that only a select few are given the key to unlock. For the rest, the liberty to live life the way you want can often be an isolating affair, especially if the don’t have a good support network. As the audience observes in Luke Gilford’s tender feature directorial debut National Anthem, finding one’s tribe can open a world of happiness that once seemed unattainable.
One person who is in desperate need of some joy to call his own is Dylan (Charlie Plummer), a 21-year-old construction work in New Mexico. Living with his mother Fiona (Robyn Lively), a hairdresser who seems more interested in partying than caring of his younger brothe Cassidy (Joey DeLeon), he is left to take on most of the responsibility in the household. This includes picking up random labour jobs that can help pay the bills and support his dreaming of buying an RV that will take him away from this lonely life.
An unexpected glimmer of hope for connection arrives when the young man gets a job working at a queer ranch headed by Sky (Eve Lindley) and her partner Pepe (Rebe Rosado). Immediately smitten with Sky, who happens to be transgendered, Dylan finds a sense of serenity while doing manual work around the grounds and meeting the various individuals who live there. Before long the young cowboy is attending queer rodeos with his new friends and experimenting with a side of himself that he has long repressed.
As Dylan timidly takes steps towards embracing the tribe his has longed for, including getting involved in a complicated love triangle with Sky, the prying eyes of his conservative society are never too far behind. His own mother warns him about getting too close to the folks at the ranch as they fly “those flags.”
While the audience is always aware of the sense of danger that could impact the young man and his friends, Gilford has no interest in telling a tale of trauma. Unlike Ang Lee’s tragic love story Brokeback Mountain, where being a gay cowboy was a secret to be shared, National Anthem embraces the joys of living openly in one’s true skin.
Gilford fills his film with love and tenderness. It is the type of work where simply lying on a beach with others and having your cheek caressed feels like the height of euphoric intimacy. In making a film that celebrates the gentleness and compassion within a community surround by, and supported with, love, National Anthem reframes the archaic notions of masculinity.
Recontextualizing the American rodeo, one of the beacons of traditional masculinity and intolerance, as a form of queer pageantry, Gilford skillfully deconstructs the fallacy of it all. In highlighting the queer rodeo community, several of whom are real life rodeo stars, the director reinforces that the LGBTQ+ community exists and thrives in all spaces.
In a time when anti-LBGTQ+ sentiment online is being weaponized, often for social media clicks and political points, to ban queer individuals from spaces they have every right being in, National Anthem is a touching reminder of the humanity that is often left out of these conversations.
When Dylan’s younger brother helps him remove his eye shadow at one point in the film, it is both a moment of childhood curiosity and brotherly love. Regardless of the road Dylan ventures down, his brother will be there to support him. This sense of unconditional love is perfectly encapsulated when Gilford uses the national anthem itself, sang at a queer rodeo, to reinforce the notion that everyone deserves the right to happiness, not just a self-chosen few.
A moving and tender work, National Anthem shows that the American dream attainable. It can often be found in the community who embraces you for who you are.
